A political thriller, State of Play follows Washington Globe journalist Cal McAffrey (Crowe) as he attempts to fit together an apparent suicide, an apparent drug-related killing and a multinational, multi-billion-dollar company who is currently being investigated by Senator Stephen Collins (Affleck). Against a tight deadline, McAffrey has to work out a puzzle that has serious ramifications; helped by a Globe blogger, Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) they track down various leads and uncover secrets left, right and centre.
The leads are all very good, as you'd expect; although Crowe and Affleck, whose characters are supposed to be good friends, make a strange couple and really don't seem to go together on screen at all well. Having said that, when they are apart (the majority of their screen time), they're both very good.
The real stars for me though, was the supporting cast - Helen Mirren is fantastic as the Globe editor Cameron Lynne; Jeff Daniels excellent as Senator George Fergus; Robin Wright Penn and Jason Bateman are also worthy of mention.
Highly enjoyable, well-paced thriller.
My rating: 7.3 / 10
IMDB rating: 7.4 / 10
Running time: 127 mins
IMDB link
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